You're Nicked, Chum!
by fnordprefect
Summary: Again in Fragments, Jack informs us that a teenage Ianto had "a couple arrests for shoplifting". Let's go back and find our hero, at a crossroads in his life, getting his beads read by an unusually perceptive and loquacious cellmate.


The door clanged shut behind me with bone-shaking finality, and I finally breathed out. At last, the boring part.

Of course, I subsequently had to breathe in, and regretted it immediately. The particular aroma of a holding cell is inimitable, thank god. And if you've never smelt it, thank god again. Just think of every type of human misery, and then imagine a smell associated with each feeling, and then mix them all together. You won't quite have gotten it, but you'll be close.

Cursory scan of the cinder block half-cube. It looked like a holding cell. Or, again, if you've never been in one, it looked like what you imagine a holding cell would look like. Fluorescent lights which never go off, check. Pot in the corner, check. Old junky snoring fitfully on the bench opposite, check. That's about all there was. I took a seat on the other bench to begin to massage the feeling back into my hands.

Let's see, it was probably around 3:45 when I got to the shop. So it must be absolutely no later than 5:30. Mum's got the late shift Tuesdays. Not usually done til about midnight, then she'll have to drive all the way over from…

Gonna be a long night.

Unless they call her at work.

Hadn't thought of that.

I allowed myself a heavy sigh, colored with just a tinge of a groan, at the thought of Mum getting that call.

The last thing I'd expected was a response. "Now now, it can't be that bad." The voice, a tenor delivered through the nose, promptly contradicted itself. "Unless it is. Is it?"

After my heart started beating again, I took a better look at the vagrant on the next bench.

"Excuse me!" I started.

"Ah, no, excuse ME; didn't mean to scare you," said the bright face, incongruously smiling as its owner rolled onto his elbow and quite frankly LOUNGED on the gaol bench.

Now that he was up and about, I saw him as younger than I'd taken him for at first glance. All elbows and sharp edges. Brown pinstripe suit—with PLIMSOLLS?—that looked like it had come from a second-hand shop attached to a funeral home. Strong "look-at-me-I'm-a-cool-teacher" vibe. Not my type. (If went for blokes, that is. Which I don't. That was just the one time, and we'd been drinking. Shut up.)

"What are you doing here?" I gasped, and then kicked myself. Not exactly the right turn of phrase. I was still reeling from the adrenaline backwash of the initial shock.

"I might as well ask what are YOU doing here?" he retorted, giving me the once-over. I rescinded my assessment of him as a junky; if this guy was high, it was on something speedy. But it may just have been his personality. "What's your name, squire?"

My politeness took over. Thanks, Mum. "Jones. Ianto Jones."

"Well, Jonesiantojones," he breezed on, "I may ask, what's a lad like you doing in a place like this?" And to think, until now I had been startled, but not yet fearful.

I clammed up. I'm not homophobic, you understand, but the stereotypes come from real statistics. And I didn't at all like the way he was looking at me. His gaze was, if you'll forgive the metaphor, penetrating. Not necessarily in an inappropriate way, but I felt like he could see through to my bones.

Lithley, he swung himself onto the worn out soles of his cheap canvas shoes. I took a strong step back, and was then out of "back" into which to step.

He was talking all the while, oblivious. "Now, I of all people understand that laws are human constructs, but you look like a kid who loves his mum, yeah? And you're not on any drugs that I can notice. So what could have possibly—"

He interrupted himself. "Hang on. What happened here?" And he was reaching toward my cheek, the place where I could feel a bruise beginning to blossom. (There would be more, mostly under the clothes. Cardiff PD keep it classy.) I flinched from his touch, which, to his credit, he swiftly withdrew.

"Easy, Ianto, I'm not here to hurt you." But his eyes were still grasping me deeply, and they did not waver. "You ran, didn't you?"

I looked away, towards the cement wall. Rolled my eyes.

"Not a bad instinct, that. It's a strategy that's saved my hair many a time." I looked back over. He sucked his teeth. "The trouble is, it helps to know what you're running TO."

That was a direct hit, whether he knew it or not. I decided that, more than dangerous, he was extremely irritating. "Excuse me, but you seem to think you know a lot about me."

"Oh, well, I've known a few young people in trouble in my day." Not exactly helping your "not-here-to-hurt-me" case here, guy.

He went on (of course). "Let's see, not kidnapping. Armed robbery, no. Definitely not murder." Who exactly was this tosser, and when on earth would he stop talking? "i am going to guess… petty theft."

I could feel heat rising in my face, which seemed to please him. Or at least, it pleased him to be right.

"Petty theft on the nose. What was it, then? Prince album? New Air Jordans? What about an iPad? Are the kids using those yet? What year is it anyway?"

That last question was so bizarre as to be unanswerable. That must be the reason I answered his first one. "Silk necktie."

"Ah-HA!" He seemed to enjoy that. "I can appreciate someone who appreciates a good silk necktie."

Definitely still uncomfortably intimate, this guy. I tried to deflect his attention. "Well, how about you? Why are you here?"

"Oh, me? All a big misunderstanding, this. In fact, when Martha's got it sorted, I'll never have been here in the first place."

Martha? Must be his barrister. I felt a touch of envy, followed by a spasm of dread. I heard my own voice, as if from a distance. "The Crown offered to drop my charges last time if I did community service. But that was contingent on staying clean for a year."

"Last time, eh?" I wish there were another word besides "sassy" to describe the look he gave me. but there it is. "Snappy dresser on a budget, are you, Ianto?"

This tiny cell could not contain the heaviness of my sigh. "There's… someone."

"Someone who enjoys the look and feel of a good silk necktie? Ianto, my boy, who doesn't?"

Absolutely infuriating. "Just a girl at school." I tried not to shout the word "girl". Steady. "Julie. Julie Jones."

He furrowed his skinny brow. "No relation, is she?"

"Of course not! It's just that your lot came down here in the fifteenth century and made us all take surnames, and everybody picked Jones." Never been prouder to be Welsh than in that moment.

"*My* lot? And who exactly might *I* be then?" he retorted, but more amused than put out.

"Well, that's a very good question, Mr…"

"Doctor, actually." For a moment,, it seemed like he was just going to leave it there. Then he finally finished, "Doctor John Smith, that is." A likely story. "But tell me more about Julie Jones, and how she's inspired you to a life of crime."

John Smith, Love Doctor, ladies and gentlemen. "She hasn't done anything!' I protested, with perhaps a bit more force than necessary.

"Ah, I see," and it was as if he'd found the "sympathetic resonance" knob in his voice and turned it up to 11. Tosser.

"No! I mean, we've been in school together. All our lives. And now she's got this boyfriend." Why did I need to explain myself to him? But I did. "And, well, he's no good at all. And I know there's nothing I can do about it. Except show her. Every day."

"That you're better?"

That caught me short. "Well, ah…"

"Because from where I'm standing it looks like you've got some work to do."

Is this one of those manipulative things that men do to women? I could see why it works. Even as I bristled at the insult, I felt a compulsion to prove him wrong.

He saw my distress. Clapped me on the back and swung his feet up on the opposite bunk. "Oh, I'm not trying to be hard on you, Ianto! Seems to me you're decently hard on yourself, so why should i get into the act. But here's a question for you: you've been trying to attract her attention with flash clothes?"

I figured stony silence was as good as assent.

"And you've been making some fairly reckless choices to keep your supply of high-end accessories seasonably fresh?"

That elicited another eye-roll. I'm not proud, but I am seventeen. (What's his excuse?)

"And what response have you gotten, exactly?"

"What?"

"From Julie. How has she reacted to your overtures? You… you HAVE made overtures, yeah? You're not just gussying up like a peacock and standing on the sidelines hoping she throws you a bone?"

Unnecessary, that. "I… I asked her if she'd join me for a movie."

This Doctor was WAY too excited. "Yes? And?"

"And she said she'd have to think it over."

"And what happened after she'd thought it over?"

"Well, she hasn't gotten back to me yet."

He made one of those half-sigh, half-whistles. Somehow on his skinny face it looked natural. "So, Ianto Jones. You've shot your plea deal in the foot, you're breaking your mother's heart, AND the girl you fancy almost certainly does NOT like you back. What are you going to do now?"

"What would you know about my mum?!" Steady. Keep it together.

"Only that she raised you, and therefore I have the utmost respect for her and would hate to see her disappointed. Here's the thing, Ianto Jones:" Oh, this better be good! "Don't you understand? Your life is going to be FILLED with love!"

Not where I was expecting him to go with that.

"But not because you dressed the sharpest, I mean, don't get me wrong, it certainly doesn't hurt, as I have cause to mention." I'll just leave that one there. "No, you are just at the beginning of a life squelchingly saturated with love because the love is IN YOU! And the more of it you give away, the more you'll have!"

Nonsense. "Where are you pulling this from?"

"I can see it in your cells, man! I told you I was a doctor, didn't I?" He looked fit to climb the walls. "It's written in every step you take and every sigh you heave! Every gap between every pair of synapses in your addle-headed brain is completely charged with pure, 100% universal love!"

I reassessed my opinion of him as not-on-drugs. The more he spun out his monologue, the more manic he became. The most accurate depiction I can muster of those next few minutes involves breaking his lines down across the page (and encouraging my readers to imagine a magpie in plimsolls hopping around the cell, perching on things, and occasionally ruffling his feathers around my head):

"Now, you, Ianto, your lady mother has been POURING her love into you  
since before you were even BORN.  
BUT and HERE IS THE IMPORTANT PART  
But EVEN IF SHE HADN'T  
YOU, Ianto Jones, are STILL a… a what?  
a CHANNEL!  
a PORTAL!  
for ALL OF THE LOVE THROUGHOUT THE MULTIVERSE.

All humans can do it!  
It astounds me how few of you ever learn it!  
But you, my friend, you have a special head start, because you are sensitive enough to feel it.  
The next step is to get smart enough to know how to use it,  
And strong enough not to destroy yourself with it.

And even if Julie Jones never looks at you twice.

Even if you never fall in love quite this way again, and thank god, because adolescent love is a trip through the wringer and that's a fact.

The  
love  
is  
in  
you.

There will be a day, and it won't be that long from now, when you remember this pain with fondness.  
Life's all you're gonna get, I'm sorry to say, and even that's not a promise."

Around here is where I started to get the strangest intuition. Could this Doctor possibly be... _jealous_ of me? For what possible reason?

"All you can do it jump out and meet it  
Not spare yourself the riskier parts of it  
Because this is really all you know for sure:

someday, it'll all be over.

and then what'll you have?  
Only the imprint your heart has left on the hearts of others."

At this point, he was finally still, standing profile to me. I stood in absolute silence.

After a moment, he brightened and turned toward me again.

"Well, Ianto Jones, it has been a pleasure, but I get the feeling it's about to be that time. I'd invite you along, but I get the sense that's not what you want." Oh, did the way my eyes became absolute SAUCERS as soon as you suggested the thought of following you to a second location give me away? "In any case, best of luck. If our paths never cross again, remember, I told you so." But by the last bit I could barely hear him, over the sound.

The sound was a whale. It was an engine. It was a great bird, with a voice like a tree, filling that little concrete box with its resonances, vibrating the bones in my skull. And it cycled through itself three times.

And by the end of the third time, this so-called Doctor wasn't there anymore.

Sure, I looked for him. There wasn't exactly an abundance of places he could have been. And by my third time investigating the space between the toilet and the wall, I had to admit: Dr. John Smith had disappeared into thin air.

Those indeterminate minutes after Smith vanished were the most alone I had ever been in my life. He'd been such an irritating git, but there was something in me that wilted now he wasn't here.

It definitely wasn't attraction (even though, all right, I am partly attracted to blokes; will you please just try and keep it to yourself). It wasn't what you might call friendship. His advice was, at the end, fairly vague and meaningless. But there was something about his presence that had made me feel like, well, that's all right then. There's more to life than this. Or there isn't, and that's somehow even better.

There wasn't more to life, not in the holding cell. I systematically exhausted its entertainment potential. Pacing out the floor (two and a half paces at a stretch). Counting the water stains on the ceiling. Trying not to think about Mum, or Julie, or court, or anything else for that matter.

And just like that, a key in the lock. "Jones?" I sprang directly to my feet with no intermediaries.

"Yes?"

The duty officer swung the door open. "You're free to go."

Never let it be said I look a gift horse in the mouth, but I couldn't help but wonder if some horrible mistake was being made. Would i get in deeper trouble later on, when they figured it out?

"No charges. Something about Howell's not even carrying that brand of necktie."

Nothing made sense anymore. "What about the other man who was here?"

"What other man, then?"

"He was here! In the cell! He said his name was John Smith."

"Oh, John Smith, I've heard that one before," cracked the duty officer as he gently but firmly handed me through the corridor, past the desk where they do the arraignments. Was I really going to get to skip that part? "Sure the boys didn't get you over the head on the way in?"

I was fairly sure they had, actually, but I knew what I'd seen. "He was here! We spoke! At length!"

Of course he was looking at me sideways. "Well, if you don't WANT to go, I'm sure we can arrange—"

"No thank you. I'm coming." And they vouchered back my belt and wallet and they pointed to the door. This time I didn't wait to be told twice.

The sun still hadn't quite set, and the long rays danced across the River Taff. As soon as the "fresh" Cardiff air hit my lungs, a strange weepy feeling out of nowhere threatened to take over my whole body. And I stood for a moment in my laceless shoes, squinting into the light on the water, just… being.

And then the bells of St. John the Baptist rang, and i felt almost as if I'd been brought back into time. Just get home, put it all behind me. I started to organize myself.

Point of information, should you ever find yourself in a similar predicament, which I don't recommend: do go through your wallet immediately. (You won't have much recourse if they've taken anything, but at least you'll have a little warning, unlike me the time I got released with no cash and no fare card and got nicked again jumping the turnstile to get the rail back home.)

Stuffed into my wallet, a note—in a soft round hand, not in the handwriting I'd expect from that bony maniac. And the note said:

"Don't mind him. Or Julie. Neither of them is the arbiter of you. Just keep doing you, and know that it's enough.  
Sorry we didn't get to meet properly this time around. Us Joneses should stick together.  
Til next time! I mean, last time! Anyway,  
With deepest care,

Martha"

I read the note from front to back at least three times. After the third time, it didn't make any more sense, but I was starting to absorb the undercurrent of friendly affection.

What can I say, I *am* seventeen, and a girl just told me "with deepest care". I felt just a little taller already. I bent down as if to tie my laceless shoe, and from inside my sock drew the second silk necktie. Whistling a bit as I began to tie it, walking down the street towards the bus stop.


End file.
